Last year my husband and I got really into Stanley Tucci’s Finding Italy so much so that we decided we were going to start making pasta on a regular basis as a family. We purchased all the tools, the 00 flour, and got ready for the magical process to begin.
On our first go round, we put the pasta into the roller and got it into a beautiful flat sheet, but when we moved to the piece which would separate the sheet into noodles, we found the noodles breaking apart, stretching and pulling where they should not. It was frustrating.
After a few instructional videos, we discovered our problem—we had to let the dough rest for about 30 minutes before rolling it out and turning it into noodles.
Rest.
It was frustrating to have to sit and wait 30 minutes for the dough to rest when we wanted to move things forward with this new family experience. The reality, however, is it had to rest or we wouldn’t have the pasta we wanted. We’d have a bunch of fragmented should-be noodles that were far from what we were going for. Let’s not forget that those noodles need to go straight into hot water for cooking. The fragments wouldn’t hold up.
It’s a lot like life. Rest is something that always feels hard to fit into the schedule. We have things to do, places to be, people to see. But the truth of the matter is, without rest, things get done a little less well, your mind is a little less present, and everything begins to feel a bit broken down, much like our pasta.
Rest is included in the earliest part of the Bible. God Himself rested. If my pasta lesson doesn’t teach you to rest, then let God’s example teach you. Jesus also took time to rest and pray, often going off alone.
Rest is considered holy. Keeping holy the Lord’s Day means not making that day about all of your “to do’s” but making it about the Lord, about thanking Him, about sitting in His creation, hanging out with people you love, resting in the present.
Rest is a gift from the Lord. He tells us when we are carrying heavy loads to come to Him. Rest in Him. My pasta dough needed 30 minutes of rest in order to be rolled out right. How do you start your day?
We think of prayer as a thing to do, but maybe we need to start thinking about it as a way to rest in the Lord. Start your day by resting in the Lord. What does that look like?
- That means starting your day remembering that God created you for a unique purpose.
- That means starting your day remembering that God will be your strength.
- That means starting your day remembering you are loved by God infinitely.
- That means starting your day remembering He is with you always.
- That means starting your day rested and ready to carry out His great works on earth.
Rest. Don’t rush.
Scripture tells us again and again, the value of rest, the need for rest, and how the Lord wants to give us rest. I want to remember to accept this gift from the Lord, a gift He Himself embraces. I want to follow His example so that when I am living my life, it’s not from depletion, leftovers, or fragments of my whole self, but instead am living wholly and holy, resting in Him. It feels hard, but it’s easier than it looks. I invite you to too: Accept the gift and take some time for quiet and rest.
“My soul rests in God alone, from whom comes my salvation.” Psalm 62:2
Leave a Reply